Corporate intranets have been around now for over a decade in one form or another. Many are on their n^th generation, having been revised, revamped, and/or reinvented. So what's new on this topic?

The Big Players Take the Lead

In the article "10 Best Intranets of 2007" (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, January 15, 2007), the author designated the following as the 10 best-designed intranet sites for 2007:

1. American Electric Power (AEP), United States
2. Comcast, United States
3. DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany
4. The Dow Chemical Company, United States
5. Infosys Technologies Limited, India
6. JPMorgan Chase & Co., United States
7. Microsoft Corporation, United States
8. National Geographic Society, United States
9. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), United Kingdom
10. Volvo Group, Sweden

While these are for the most part large enterprises, there are some trends that are worthwhile teasing out. For example, Nielsen indicates that the use of multimedia was more pronounced this year and that "video is proliferating—often for training purposes, but also for executive communications." While many corporate intranets already offer news feeds, "this year's winners have taken extra steps to make their news offerings more relevant to employees, both for internal news and for industry-related external news."

Nielsen also posits that there has been an increase in firmer standards for intranet pages and that they have become more template-based, ensuring greater consistency in the user interface. Regarding the use of content management systems (CMSs), Nielsen reports that "all the winning intranets...CMS. Strikingly, most intranets used their own homemade CMS. Thus, even though there are standards within each intranet, there's no standard across intranets, even in the choice of CMS."

The winners have also incorporated Weblogs this year; however, they are "restrained, emphasizing useful information" and not employee gossip. The employee directory search has continued to evolve and is, on some corporate intranets, incredibly sophisticated, relying on degrees of social distance algorithms (i.e., it sorts results by degree of distance from the user) to make the employee search more refined.

In a breakdown as to whom in the company "owns" the corporate intranet, Nielsen found that among the winners from 2005 to 2007, "35% were in Corporate Communications, 27% were in Information Technology or Information Systems (IT/IS), and 19% were in Human Resources (HR), [with] the remaining 19%...based in a variety of other departments, including Web Marketing, Public Affairs, and the corporate library."

I find the statistic for HR most illuminating because I know of many larger organizations that have intranets, some of which are overwhelming in the information they provide and plodding with regard to trying to get to the information you need. I find it amazing that these companies don't provide interactive HR features such as (by inputting your employee number and unique password) being able to retrieve the number of personal, vacation, and sick days you have or retrieve 401K and other financial information. Some of these companies still have employees fill out time cards manually! Is this the "employment protection act" for HR?

Nielsen submits that the most popular products were Microsoft Windows Server, Google Search Appliance or Google Mini, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server, Google Maps, Omniture, and Vignette.

A Five-Step Program

Toby Ward, in his 2005 article "Intranet Blog: Intranet Best Practices," designed a five-step program to achieve intranet success. His five-step program is company size and vertical agnostic.

Ward suggests first and foremost to plan (yes, that four-letter word we eschew hearing).
The success of the intranet as well as its performance is often "determined before construction with the identification of business requirements." GIGO is a given. If the architectural blueprint for the intranet is substandard, so too will be the intranet. Scope creep also ensures problems with delivery and function. A phased implementation is optimal for a corporate intranet. Ward points out that "Gartner estimates that one third of projects exceed budgets and schedules by almost 100% in small to mid-size companies."

Second is content. Ward asserts that content is the uncontested king. It is valuable to hire professional help to develop an editorial policy. Content must be "[t]imely and relevant." Outdated Web pages should be removed. This is a dynamic process, not a one-time or nothing-at-all venture. Those who are responsible for the intranet must know what company employees desire to see. Conduct a short survey to see what the employee population favors. While the aforementioned applies mainly to static Web pages, if your intranet is interactive and allows authorized individuals to conduct sales, profit, and forecast analyses, etc., then it is prudent not only to understand what these individuals desire to accomplish on the intranet, but to design the programs so that they are executive-friendly and intuitive. If trying to get sales figures for a particular month or seeing what checks have cleared in A/R is a monumental task, then, guess what, no one is going to use the intranet and it will be the albatross around IT's neck versus the wind beneath its wings. Also, Ward points out that information should be succinct (he suggests that "text should be limited to 50% of the words you would write in a print publication").

To get people to use the corporate intranet, it has to be promoted. Ward's step three is a step-wise process: The organization must first understand the benefit of the intranet (it should really make people's lives easier, not have them pulling out their hair and Tylenol). This is followed by acceptance and then use. Ward suggests pre-promoting the intranet via "e-mail alerts, surveys, news stories, word of mouth, etc." I suggest also having an ice-cream social or luncheon (let's face it; you can't have "happy hour") in the cafeteria to market the intranet. Remember, it is all about the marketing.

Step four is standardization. The intranet should have a consistent look and feel. Ward recommends the use of templates, footers, and a style guide as well as an editorial policy (e.g., content formats, roles, and responsibilities), a taxonomy (e.g., categorizing and storing content), and rules regarding proper use of emailing and instant messaging.

Finally, in step five, Ward beseeches companies to simplify, simplify, simplify. The intranet must be intuitive; there must be a content information architecture, effective search tools, and heuristic self service. I know of many organizations' intranets where one has to hunt for the "change-your-password(s)" feature. This is pretty basic stuff. Design your intranet by putting yourself in the user's chair—literally. It is worth following John/Jane Q. User for a day just to see how they would use the intranet and for what. You might be surprised and get a lot of great input.

Your Razorfish, Madame/Monsieur
For the more visually minded, visit Avenue A Razorfish Enterprise Solutions. This Web page features an excellent graph that plots the six stages of intranet maturity with regard to business value (y axis) against information usage (x axis).

Endorse and Enforce
An excellent vignette is how IBM Lotus Notes became the de facto email standard for IBM employees. Former IBM CEO and Chairman Louis Gerstner gave the executive order that every employee at IBM, including himself, would transition from the Professional Office System (PROFS) to Lotus Notes. Gerstner summarily declared that he would not read PROFS-based emails from his senior managers, and he was true to his word. Everyone at IBM got that message loud and clear and converted to Lotus Notes tout de suite. It is paramount that upper management both endorse the development of, and enforce the acceptance and use of, the corporate intranet. They must set the tone for the company.

Moreover, keep in mind that as management changes, so will the intranet. This may be felt more keenly in smaller companies because the trickle-down effect takes less time. IT or whomever is responsible for the intranet must be sensitive to both change in the organization chart and change in the company culture and then act accordingly.

The Peanut Gallery Weighs In
While I am in agreement with the aforementioned intranet recommendations and observations, some items not covered above need to be mentioned because they especially apply to SMBs.

One major item not covered is the availability of the resources—budget, people, and skill sets. If your company has champagne taste but is on a beer budget, the corporate intranet will not meet expectations and you will have failed. It is paramount to set the expectation levels. Small steps are key. If you can implement small but useful intranet operations, such as self-service password reset, you can build on your successes and likely receive additional funding over time. Don't fall into the trap of being pressured into delivering the impossible. Do your research and level-set everyone's expectations. Be prepared also with a plan for future improvements along with time, talent, and cost estimates.

Differentiation is important; however, it's not key. The corporate intranet should be customized regarding the industry vertical the company represents, but don't go overboard. It is optimal to try to gain a look at some "successful" corporate intranets of your competition. This can be achieved if you participate in user groups. Most people bring their WiFi-enabled laptops to conferences. The topic of the corporate intranet can be an ice breaker/conversation starter, and you might be able to get a glimpse of someone else's intranet or at least ferret out what they like and don't like about it.

Executive innovation is key but so are the innovative ideas that emerge from IT and other departments. The corporate intranet is the company bible. It should be dynamic and something to which everyone wants access and from which they can derive value.

Maria A. DeGiglio is President of, and Principal Analyst for, Maria A. DeGiglio & Associates, an advisory firm that provides clients with accurate and actionable information on business and technology initiatives. You can reach Ms. DeGiglio at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .